Throwing the Switch
by Inkspace
Summary: Christine's gullibility and imagination put Raoul in an unlikely position when she leaves to return to Erik. Can Raoul convince her that her romanticization of her Phantom is an illusion? Especially when Erik is... indisposed? Novel-based, dark humour.
1. Ill Omens

_A/N: The Christine-chooses-Raoul-then-changes-her-mind-and-goes-back-to-Erik story has been told and retold thousands of times on this very site. But what if Raoul weren't quite so oblivious to Christine's actions and the decisions she was wrestling with? What if things didn't work out... quite as anyone had planned?_

_This story is mainly novel-verse, but it will touch on some elements from a wide variety of versions. And whether you like E/C or R/C, I hope you'll find something to amuse you in the story that follows._

_Special thanks to Kryss LaBryn and Biskuits, who have been wonderful contributors to, and sounding boards for, so many deliciously ridiculous ideas for this piece!_

_If you like what you read, or have any thoughts to share, I would love to hear from you! Thank you, and enjoy._

* * *

**Throwing the Switch**

Being a sombre comedy of love, loss, and liars

.

**Chapter One**

Vague and only a little disconcerting at first, the signs had been unmistakable for some time now.

Their union had started off happily enough, despite both of them needing some time to recover their shattered nerves after their adventure in the cellars of the opera. However, as the months had passed, and Raoul felt himself regaining at least some of his former youthful energy, Christine had begun to display some rather… peculiar… behaviours.

Listless during the days of her recovery, she had surprised Raoul when she began to find sufficient bursts of energy to take up the hobby of sewing. Not thinking on it much at first, he was surprised again when his wife's creations began to reveal themselves to him, one by one. A curious and beautiful set of clothing, and all its pieces very tiny, as though for a small child. An elaborately embroidered silk vest with an Oriental look to it. Small silk pantaloons. Slippers with curled toes, and a fez-style cap. All were lovingly, carefully, beautifully crafted through Christine's feverish efforts.

Raoul began to understand. Or at least, he though he did.

"Christine," he asked one day, cheerful expectancy in his voice. "You aren't by any chance… That is to say, with all these lovely clothes you've been making. Are you… with child, dearest?"

Christine stared at him, seemingly uncomprehendingly, for a moment before letting out a shrill little laugh and waving her hand as though brushing the notion aside. "Oh heavens no, no. What on earth could have given you that idea?"

Raoul frowned, unable to hide his disappointment. "Why, then, this sudden fixation? What on earth are all these—"

"Oh you know how long these days are for me, Raoul. It's just… I do get so lonely here sometimes."

"I suppose. I—"

"Wouldn't it be nice to have a little person about to keep us company?"

"So you do mean you want a child?"

"Oh heavens, heavens no. I am talking about a pet monkey."

"A – what?"

Raoul had most adamantly not agreed. Christine had grown silent and blushed bright red, and had never spoken of it - or returned to her sewing - since.

* * *

On the occasion of Raoul's birthday, Christine had made another disconcerting choice.

The morning of that chill November day, Christine had blushed brightly, telling Raoul she had gifts for him that she simply could not wait for him to open. Her excitement was so great she was nearly trembling as she had handed him a large, surprisingly heavy box.

Smiling indulgently and expectantly, Raoul had opened the package to reveal… an expanse of heavy wool fabric, as black as a moonless sky. Curious, he lifted it from the box and shook it loose of its folds. He looked over at Christine, trying not to betray his confusion. Then back to the garment. In his hands, he held a full-length black cloak, with caped shoulders and a high collar. Clearly a lovely, quality piece of clothing, but a little… eccentric for his more conservative tastes.

"Isn't it just absolutely beautiful?" she fluttered. "You look simply so dashing in black. I wish you would wear darker clothing so much more." She giggled and added in a whisper, "It makes you look so mysterious."

Raoul chuckled, bemused. "Come Christine, surely you don't think I have a mysterious bone in my body! It does look very warm though." He loosely refolded it and walked over to the thank her with a kiss.

"That's not all, dear!" she added, still with great energy. And she had handed him a hat box.

* * *

As the weeks progressed, a melancholy descended over Christine. Her strange bouts of manic inspiration seemed to fully abandon her. Though concerned by her mood, Raoul was over all pleased to think that perhaps, finally, she was putting the past behind her.

Or so he had dared to hope.

.

One particular day, as they shared afternoon tea, Christine's sighs were so frequent and regular that they alternated with her sips of the hot drink. Finding himself turning from mildly amused to fantastically irritated, Raoul finally asked her – as gently as though he had been coaxing a child – what was bothering her.

"Oh Raoul," she sighed again. "You would never understand."

She stood suddenly and turned away, one hand still clutching her tea cup. The other went to her forehead in a sweeping gesture – like an actress in one of those abysmal melodramas to which she had lately become fond of dragging him.

Raoul crossed his arms and – only while her back was turned – allowed himself the great catharsis of a full eye roll. "Darling Christine. Whatever is troubling you, please be assured that your loving husband will do his very best to console you and to remedy the problem."

Christine sniffed, and the tea cup still hung precariously from her fingertips. Raoul tensed as the remaining sips still held within threatened to escape the rim and drip onto their Oriental carpet. "I'm sorry Raoul. It's all so very complicated."

He attempted patience in his tone, but found himself speaking through gritted teeth. "Put it to me in plain language, dear, and I will attempt to wrap my head around it."

"It's – I feel so empty, Raoul. There is a hunger burning within me."

Raoul frowned. He leaned back in his chair and said evenly, "Would you like a scone?"

She turned and looked him in the eye, and gestured broadly in woeful frustration. The tea gave up its last foothold and was flicked from her despondent fingertips across the rug. Well, at least the pattern was dark, he thought, repressing a sigh.

"Not that kind of empty, Raoul. Empty in my head."

He bit his tongue.

"Empty of… the sound of music. It used to fill me at every hour. Obsessing me. Fascinating me. Now there is only dreary silence and the ticking of clocks to pass the day."

Raoul looked away and frowned. Was his conversation really so tiresome?

"If you've been wanting to hear music, I wish you'd have said something sooner. I can get out my violin. I have been keeping up the practice of it, and—"

Christine had turned away. She batted her fingers in the air in his general direction, as though shooing away a small fly. "Oh no no, Raoul, you needn't apologize for your lack of interest in the power that makes my very heart beat. I've always known you never had any interest whatsoever in the musical arts, and I knew I would have to accept their absence from my life when I married you."

"But… but I play the violin! Christine, I took lessons from your father. I've attended every new opera for years. I've a devoted patron of the arts. I invest in all the new productions. I… Why on earth would you think I have no intere—"

"Oh you needn't fret. I simply, oh, I knew that I would have to give it all up to be happy with you. And that the price of my safety would be this interminable silence. Oh Raoul, you do keep me so safe. So predictably, simply, quietly safe. You are a dear thing." She walked up to him and rather determinedly planted a few pats on his blond head. Then she turned and walked from the room, rubbing her eyes and sighing.

Raoul sat there gaping a moment longer. What the hell had just happened?

He stood and called after her. "I, I–I'm getting my violin! Right. Now." But there was no use. She had already shut herself away in their room.

* * *

He didn't mean to spy on her, exactly. He never… never _really_ meant it each and every time that it seemed to just… happen. Always, however, he was able to console himself with the fact that it had been in her interest and for her own good. (Almost always.) Raoul had known for years that she was not really right in the head – a few notes short of an aria – but he had come to love her back when they were still children and her fantastical persuasions were not only acceptable, but truly fascinating. As they had both grown older and she had not grown out of them, his love had only deepened with compassion.

Now, however, he was listening at her door once again, ear pressed up unapologetically to it with his empty teacup in between to amplify any sounds.

At first there were only the deep sighs to which he had grown all too accustomed (and which had started to sound, to his ears, like fingernails grinding over slate) and then what seemed to be muffled sobs.

"Oh angel, angel. How I wish you could hear me now," came her voice, softly. "Or that I could hear you. That we might… hear… each other."

Raoul blanched. He pressed his ear even harder to the cup, the rough bottom of the china digging into the sensitive skin and most likely leaving a mark.  
Silence, and then more sighs, made Raoul quiver in irritation. He next heard a door open within the room, and the sound of metal sliding over wood. Clothes hangers! Then, soft _whump _noises. These took him a moment to interpret, but he eventually identified the sound as clothing being tossed onto a bed.

"What the devil—" he started to mutter, catching himself before she could hear him in turn.

He wasn't truly alarmed, however, until he heard a couple of clicks, rattles, and creaks. He knew that sound.

Christine was packing a suitcase.

He didn't have to wonder where she was headed.


	2. Goodbye and Fare You Well

**Chapter Two  
**

The realization put Raoul in a sudden quandary. Though the evidence had been building for some time, he found himself utterly unprepared for the possibility of her sudden departure. What could he do? What could he possibly say to her? When Christine had herself convinced of some version of reality, he knew from long experience that it was nigh impossible to open her eyes to the actual situation. Especially when it was her tendency to colour her own world in a much prettier way than reality would have it.

Though they had been married less than a year, there had still been plenty of time, he realized - so many idle hours in which the dear girl had had little to do but escape to the dreamlike world that Erik had built around her. And also plenty of time to forget, or to convince herself that she had forgotten, the nightmare.

After his discovery, he had retreated to the sitting room, pacing in thought as he processed the situation, and cursing himself for not having been more attentive. More stimulating. A bored dreamer was a dangerous thing indeed - especially one who could not be awoken. _It is dangerous to wake a sleepwalker_, some half-remembered voice whispered in the back of his brain. But it had to be worse to stand by and watch one wander off the edge of a cliff.

Raoul well knew the _where_ to which she was heading. The problem was, he did not know the _when_. Was she planning to desert him post-haste? Would she leave him that very evening?

Would she even try to tell him goodbye?

If he had any chance of changing her mind - even if he could not win her heart back, he at the very least hoped to save her from being confined by that madman again - he would have to intercept her at the threshold of her final destination. He would _have_ to get there first.

But _when_?

At worst, she would leave him that night. Once she was determined to do something, he knew, she was stubbornly determined enough not to wait on it. Yes, he would have to be prepared for the possibility that she would leave that very evening.

A tell-tale sigh preceded her into the room. It was time to act - with no more time to think.

"There you are, dear," he said in a deliberately slow voice, doing his best not to betray either his knowledge or his panic. "Have you, err, recovered?" He approached her and gently took her fingertips into his hand. "I hope you're not feeling unwell." He brushed his thumb across her wedding ring, feeling that it, at least, was still in place.

Her other hand went up to brush a strand of hair away from her face, and she averted her eyes. "Oh, I was merely very tired, and needed a rest. Ever so badly." She looked him in the eyes directly now. Never had her own blue eyes looked so beautiful, a mixture of sadness and brightness illuminated in them. "I feel much better. My. Um. My head feels clearer now."

Raoul fought to maintain his casual composure. He cleared his throat. "Had you, erm. Had you any plans for the evening?"

She flinched at the question, but recovered herself quickly. Her eyes held a hunted look. Raoul felt his jaw and hands clench. He could almost hear his heart beating, and wondered if she was as nervous.

Either way, he was fairly certain, she had just given up her game.

"I-" she started hoarsely, then swallowed. "I hadn't - thought, really. But maybe I might go - to visit - out." She looked back over her shoulder like an actress not-so-subtly seeking a prompt. "Err. Why? Are you. Do you. Have plans?"

Raoul realized he had been staring at her hard. He blinked a few times, and gave his head a shake.

"I - yes. Plans" He thought a moment. What could he be doing? And without her? "I'm sorry it seems - rather sudden. I'm. I'm meeting... some of my fellow officers. From the Navy. Naval officers."

"Oh!" said Christine. "Will their wives be attending? Should I dress to accompany you?" Her tone sounded artificially enthused, but the corners of her mouth kept twitching downward..

Raoul inhaled. He could hear the clock ticking on the mantel. God, no wonder she found it annoying. "I'm afraid it's not that sort of evening, dear. There's been a death, you see. A captain. I know I resigned my commission, but. It was a man I knew aboard the _Borda_. It was untimely. Most unfortunate. The..." He cleared his throat and looked away. Shame filled him at how easily the lies dropped from his lips. He felt himself blushing. _Stop. Stop it. _"The funeral was abroad. But some of us are meeting to say our own sort of farewell."

"Oh no! I am sorry, Raoul. I wish I'd known. I'm sorry I couldn't provide some comfort." Her concern did sound genuine. Raoul… unclenched… somewhat. At least she still cared about him. At least he had that.

He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. He kissed her lightly on the forehead, allowing his lips to linger a moment. He then let his chin rest on her blonde curls, savouring a touch he might not have again.

Reluctantly, he stepped back.

"I should dress myself for the occasion, I suppose." He was still wearing lighter-coloured, casual day clothes. His voice became tight, and he quietly rasped, "You said you might leave?"

"Go out. Yes. F-for the evening, I mean. Maybe to… Mama Valerius. Um. But before it gets too late," she added, seeming to remember that staying late into the evening with an invalid elderly woman was not the greatest invention of an excuse. "And… perhaps to see the Girys, after."

Raoul noticed she was trembling. Oh, what a terrible little liar she made.

He grabbed her suddenly in a fierce embrace, surprising both of them. Was this the last time she would let him hold her so?

"Goodbye, Raoul," she whispered into his shoulder.

It took all the self-discipline he possessed to let her go.

For now.

.

Raoul dressed hurriedly, choosing dark and sombre dress clothing that would match well with his purported purpose for departing that evening. On his way out, he hesitated a moment, then opted for the strange heavy cloak and wide-brimmed black hat about which Christine had been so peculiar. They would serve him best in his efforts to remain concealed.

He also pocketed a loaded revolver.

He caught a brougham to the opera without difficulty. Entry to the building also went without a hitch. The theatre was dark that night, with neither rehearsal nor performance taking place. He slipped in a staff entrance where the doorman knew him; the man looked at him curiously, but did not question the right of a key investor to be on premises whenever he chose. After he had passed by him, it occurred to Raoul that the man probably thought he was sneaking in, covered from head to toe, for a secret dalliance with one of the performers. His poor late brother had probably done the same thing on hundreds of occasions. It was not a reputation that Raoul wanted to carry, but at least no one could expect the true purpose for his secretive arrival… He pulled the folds of his black scarf higher about his face, to better conceal himself from further detection.

Inside, the building was minimally lit. It was easy to remain in the shadows as he moved along the elaborate, neo-Baroque hallways, unseen or unquestioned by the few employees he passed. He could not help but feel a thrill as he slipped through the semi-darkness, the low gaslight reducing his presence to a fleeting shadow creeping up the walls.

He avoided the grand foyer and staircase, keeping to the broad corridors that ran along the side of the building, leading on one side to the library of the Academy of Music, and on the other side, to the backstage area he sought.

Again, luck was with him. A few of the cleaning staff hadn't quite finished up for the day, and he found his preferred entrance to the otherwise restricted backstage corridors to be unlocked.

These halls were much narrower, compared to the grand scale of the public areas of the building. It would be harder to move about undetected through these passages, but Raoul had little choice. At the very worst, someone might recognize him and, once more than one staff member had the same suspicion, he knew that rumours of his infidelity would be an unavoidable fact. However, if he lost his wife to her delusional attachment to the lunatic in the cellar, such rumours would be meaningless.

As he moved, he plotted his best course. By what route would Christine be most likely to seek passage to the lair? Erik had destroyed the mechanism operating the counterweight behind the mirror, so that was out. And Raoul certainly had no intention of trapping himself once again inside the mirrored torture chamber; even if it were no longer operational, he would be almost certainly be trapped there and die a slow, agonizing death of starvation. So the passage behind the Roi de Lahore backdrop was also eliminated.

Though it was possible Christine knew of another secret passage, Raoul had only one option left to him. He would have to take the maintenance staff's passage down to the shores of the lake and see what he found there. He knew something of the "siren" that the both the Persian and Erik had spoken of – the very _thing_ that had killed his brother. He was not stupid: the siren had to be Erik himself in some guise, alerted by something tripped by the boat's passage through the lake. But perhaps it would be enough for him to stand and wait for her on the shore. With his hand at the level of his eyes.

.

Assuming that the gas lighting did not continue into the depths of the buildings, Raoul had first to secure, and light, a lantern. After searching through random rooms behind unmarked doorways – overwhelmed by the maze-like twists of the building's corridors – he bumbled through dressing rooms and maintenance closets before finally coming across what he needed. On his search for the entrance to the cellars, a pretty dancer – was she there on a dalliance of her own? – caught sight of his form in the shadows, from down the hallway, and let out a horrified shriek. This shocked him so much he nearly dropped and shattered the lantern. He started to panic, unsure what to do next, but the wee thing ran off the other way, crying "The ghost! The ghost!" and left him quite alone.

It did nothing to improve his mood, however.

.

The passage to the very lowest levels of the building went ahead with little incident, compared to the night he had slunk down below with the Persian. The theatre being dark, there were few people milling about whom he had to avoid. He did, at the turn of a blackened stairwell, encounter two hunched and decrepit old men. (Where they the trap-door-closers of whom Christine had spoken?) They stared at him for a moment, but then looked away sharply and shuffled off without a word. After he had passed them, he heard them whisper in hushed tones. Something about a "shade"? No, he can't have heard right…

After a mind-and-leg-numbing number of stairs and twists and corridors and archways and more stairs, Raoul abruptly found himself at the edge of the lake. He was surprised at how little there was to see. The stairs seemed to lead straight into the water. The ceiling of the cistern was very low at its edge, and the only mode of conveyance ahead of him was a tiny wooden dinghy, presumably used by the crew for inspecting the vast, low dome over the lake for signs of structural weakness. Surely this wasn't the shore to which Christine had been absconded? Surely this was not the elegant black gondola aboard which she had been conveyed to the mysterious house?

Raoul cursed.

Grudgingly, precariously, he climbed into the tiny thing, unleashed it, and began to row.

.

He was careful just to skirt the perimeter of the lake, not wanting to venture in far enough to potentially trip whatever alarm Erik had set up. After swinging his lantern and squinting through the darkness for what felt like an eternity, he finally came across the looming black shape of the gondola, tied to the ring of a small dock.

Now he stood upon that dock, holding new information in his hands that, if true, just might change everything.

There had been an envelope secured to the boat's ring, addressed to "Daroga". Within it – Raoul hadn't hesitated to open it, needing to know – was the following note:

_"Daroga,_  
_If you are reading this, then you know already that is time to print my little announcement in L'Epoque. Please do no call on me yourself, for you will find I am in no state to receive company. I am leaving the boat for her, for when she comes to fulfil her promise. She will come to me, daroga. I hope you do not doubt it still._

_The time has come to cease the abomination of life within this carcass. You could say this is the moment I was born for. Goodbye, friend, and fare you well._

_-Erik"_

Raoul read the near-illegible writing several times over, the meaning slowly sinking in. He remembered Christine's promise. Was it true? Was the monster truly dead? The letter was wrinkled with moisture and spotted with mildew. It had been there, unclaimed, for some time. If the creature had been so close to death at the time he had written it, then surely by now…

His hand tightened around the letter, crumpling it in his fist. He tucked the missive into the folds of his cloak.

He had to know. He had to. It could all end now. It could all be over so neatly.

He hopped back into the dinghy, and rowed with renewed vigour out into the darkness of the cistern.


	3. Akin

_A/N: Just a quick word to say thanks to everyone who has been reading this! If you like what you've read, or have any thoughts, I would love to hear from you. My thanks to those of you who have reviewed!_

_I don't want to deliver any spoilers. However, I've had some people wondering if this story is likely to go E/C or R/C. For those of you who are strongly pro-E/C, I beg you to hang in, despite what may lie ahead. This story isn't the conventional... well, anything. It is my sincere hope that both E/C and R/C fans will find plenty to enjoy here. Nothing in this tale is exactly what it seems._

_And now, I shall say no more on the subject. Onwards!  
_

* * *

**Chapter Three**

Raoul might never have found the house by the lake had its entrance not been left ajar for, he assumed, that very reason. That Christine might easily find it and enter to fulfill her duty. Even then, the entrance was little more than a gap, marking a doorway which otherwise blended perfectly with the concrete and brickwork surrounding it. Only an iron ring, to which he moored the boat, and a single step almost flush with the surface of the water, differentiated it from any other wall along the cistern's perimeter.

He used the step to alight from the boat and, his lantern in one hand and his revolver cocked and raised in the other – ready to fire or to loosen the dreaded lasso – he mouthed a silent prayer before slipping inside the house.

Just inside the open wall, Raoul stood frozen in place, the pounding of his heart counting off the seconds. Waiting for… nothing, he hoped. If he were wrong, if he had misread the note, or if it had all been a ruse, this was the moment his life would end. If not strangled, then shot, perhaps. Or attacked from behind – dragged backwards into the lake and drowned, that he might join his poor brother.

The seconds continued to pass for him, however. His heart continued to beat.  
And there was nothing.

Raoul stepped further inside. He took a deep breath to gather himself, and held the lantern aloft to survey his surroundings.

The light revealed only the curiously ordinary foyer and sitting room, which he remembered all too clearly despite having prayed to forget. At one end of the room, two wing-backed armchairs near the empty fireplace formed the ghost of a domestic tableau. Bookshelves holding dusty volumes lined the walls. A piano stood abandoned at the opposite end of the room, its shiny surface already collecting a layer of filth from neglect. Closer to him was the sofa on which he had recovered, in a drugged slumber, from near drowning before being dragged off to the Communard dungeons.

He shivered from both the cold and his revulsion.

After taking in the scene, and realizing that no one had killed him as of yet, he found and lit a few candles within the room. Perhaps they would alleviate the oppression of the darkness and the chill cast, in part, by the horror of his own recollections.

Only once he had the slight comfort of that light did Raoul notice something a bit off. A bit more off, that is to say, than shivering alone in the house of a possibly dead madman five storeys below the earth. There was an odour.

He took up both his lantern and his revolver again and moved further into the house.

.

The first door he tried opened, with a slow creak, onto absolute darkness. Keeping his firearm up and at the ready, Raoul used his other hand to shine the lantern into the thick shadows. Slowly, the darkness began to melt away as his eyes adjusted to the gloom within. He let out a gasp.

This was the strange and morbid chamber Christine has described as Erik's private room. Dead centre in the space was a canopied dais, hung with black and red curtains. This was the place, Christine had told him, where the coffin that had served as Erik's bed was housed. Now, however, the platform was empty. Raoul felt a chill creep up his spine at the sight. As terrible as the vision of the coffin would have been, somehow its absence was far, far worse.

He forced himself to enter the room to explore it more thoroughly. At the far end, taking up one whole wall, was the pipe organ. Cases for various instruments were leaned and stacked in one corner, with reams of sheet music piled haphazardly in crates and on stands. In another corner, a black wardrobe. Beside it, a shelf with something gleaming from its surface. Moving closer, Raoul saw that the gleam was from a row of various masks lying atop it: some hard porcelain, others shining black silk. Their empty eye holes stared straight upwards, like the blind sockets of a skull.

As he took in these details, Raoul noticed that the light from the lantern was trembling. He realized he was, himself, shivering in trepidation. He clenched his jaw, and closed his eyes a moment to gather his courage and will himself to be sensible.

Completing his cursory search, he found the room no different than Christine had described it in her terrible recollection. Save for the conspicuous absence of that coffin.

After a quick exploration of the dining area and kitchen, both small and unremarkable, Raoul found only one other closed door leading from the main living area – the house not being exactly grandiose. Entering, once again with every caution, he shone the light inside and looked about the room. At first glance, the space was extraordinarily ordinary. It seemed to be a simple bedroom, with heavy, rather plain Louis-Philippe style furniture, and lace-trimmed toile bedding that marked the room as a woman's. This was the place of Christine's imprisonment! And it was through a secret panel in this room… that one accessed the torture chamber. Raoul inhaled sharply at the memory, and swung the lantern left and right abruptly, looking for the access to that chamber of horrors.

The scent, he noticed, was stronger in here.

To his right, he saw it. There was a sliver of darkness where a section of the wall had been left open. Fearfully, but with unslaked curiosity, he moved toward it.

.

Stepping inside, he was immediately dazzled by what appeared to be hundreds of lights approaching him from every angle. He gaped in panic, his hand frozen on the revolver, not knowing if or where to fire first, before realizing what exactly he was seeing.

It was the light of his own lantern, reflected infinitely in the six mirrors surrounding him.

He took a deep breath – the stale, musty, vaguely sweet smell heavy in the air – before walking into the space and casting his lantern's light about. Ahead of him, in the room's centre: the iron tree. At its base, the open trap door.

Before descending to explore that lower space (the cellar of a cellar of a cellar…) Raoul had a moment's inspiration. He returned to the bedroom and dragged a heavy footstool from there into the torture chamber, planting it squarely on top of the opened trap door. With a chair, he secured the chamber's door in the open position. Either door snapping shut through some mechanism could have meant a long, slow, terrible death. Unassisted, Raoul had to think like the Persian for himself, now.

These things done, he held both lantern and gun before him once more, and with both calm and dread in his heart, he descended the stairs into the room of the barrels.

.

It was there that Raoul found what he had come for. Upon a new dais, made up of the spoiled barrels, the coffin rested. And inside the coffin, Erik rested.

Approaching the casket with his lantern held high, Raoul found himself uncertain for a fleeting moment, to his shame, whether or not the man was truly dead. Living with the face of a decayed corpse did not leave much for the signs of death, when they came, to work with. But standing beside the coffin, gazing on the ravaged face and seeing no animation, no signs of breath or life, he knew that his suspicions were confirmed. Erik was gone.

Raoul hung the lantern from an overhead beam and stood over the coffin. He whispered an apology, "I'm sorry I'm not her", before lifting the lid to close and forever seal it. He glanced one last time at the face of death – not much changed from when he had first seen it by the altar at Perros. The hands, which had once lain fuses to these very barrels that surrounded him and which could have killed hundreds with the turn of a switch, now lay still over a bound manuscript. Only in that last, dared glance did Raoul see a note and a little black pouch set atop the bound volume. He placed the lid back down and reached in, his hands steadier now, and picked up the objects to examine them.

The pouch was a little leather purse, and through its material he could feel the metal shafts of keys. He unfolded the note, a small thing scrawled over two pages in the same nearly indecipherable red handwriting as the previous message, and he read.

_Dearest Christine,_

_I am sorry to ask you here at great inconvenience, and to see me in such a state as this; though I expect I am really not much changed for the worse. I can only hope you will forgive your poor Erik for the selfishness of wanting you to visit him once more. You have allowed a sorry Don Juan this last small victory._

_You do me both the greatest kindness and greatest honour a man could receive by standing beside me this last time. I will do you a little one in turn. I asked you, dear girl, to place our ring on my poor dead hands, but oh, the agonies that little request has caused me since. I was a fool, I know, and always asked too much of you. I know my hand cannot offend you less now, such as it is. Only leave the ring with me, and I know the happiness with which I prepare to depart is complete._

Raoul turned to the second page.

_You now hold in your hands the keys to life and death. I hope you know what you must do with them. Choose life, Christine, and forget this place. Forget me too if it relieves, at all, the burden I have imposed upon you. Or if you will remember me, then remember one happy thought of the angel before he fell from your grace. Bury the rest with your poor Erik. Know that, finally, he is not unhappy, and that your freedom and contentment have brought him peace. Have brought me peace. Thank you._

_Now, live._

Raoul stood looking at the letter for a long time after he had finished reading it, until he was uncertain how long he had been staring at it. If he had imagined that this would be a kind of victory, he had been a damnable fool. There was no cheer, no pride, no sense of having vanquished a monster. Only a weight of sudden, indefinable grief, like a heavy stone where his stomach had been.

He refolded the letter, and secreted it and the bag away in a pocket of his cloak. He would give the message to Christine only after he had taken her away with him from this place. Erik was right; he did ask too much, and the sight of his corpse in the coffin might have driven the sensitive girl mad.

Raoul took up the lid again, whispered another apology to the dead man, and sealed the coffin.

Limbs heavy and slow, exhaustion and melancholy his burden, Raoul reclaimed the lantern and ascended the stairs. He sealed the trap door and the torture chamber, using the key from the little bag to lock the door. The airtight seal immediately reduced the saccharine odour of decay, though it still lingered faintly.

His head was spinning. He leaned against the sealed panel. His knees felt weak. The hollow feeling brought on by this terrible place was slowly filling with emotions he wasn't sure he recognized as his own.

He pushed himself away from the door, moving unsteadily and unthinkingly out of Christine's bedroom. And into Erik's.

In that mortuary chamber, Raoul sat heavily on the dais and buried his face in his hands. Hands that, he noticed to his horror, smelled of death.

He pulled them away and looked at them. He saw too that they were wet, and realized he did not know when he had started crying. The flood of horror had burst its dam.

His vision blurred, he wiped his eyes with the edge of the dark wool cloak and looked at his surroundings as though seeing them for the first time. He had had no occasion, no reason to think of Erik as anything but an evil adversary. In Raoul's situation, entirely black and white thoughts of where they stood had been expedient to delivering Christine from Erik's control. Raoul had done right, he knew still, and had nothing to regret. But now with the threat removed, the pity Christine had held - which had once seemed incomprehensible to him - was beginning to move him too.

Good God, he thought. He had been alone in this place no more than an hour and he could feel the solitude threatening to suffocate him, as surely as though the weight of the entire edifice above him were pressing on his chest. What horror must life among the living have been to have driven a man into a tomb of his own design? What hell could have made this purgatory into a sanctuary?

What Christine must have meant in a place like this, he could only begin to imagine. A rare and beautiful ray of pure light, cutting through five storeys of darkness to illuminate the abyss. What man condemned to this emptiness would not fight past the point of madness to keep the last light of hope in his life? Raoul had himself said and done mad things in the name of his love for Christine, despite having everything in his power to live a splendid, luxurious, uncomplicated life without her. If he had not possessed his comely looks and fortune, if he had instead been ground under the heel of the world, how much more might he have done than threaten to freeze to death on a trip to the Arctic?

The more he thought on it, the more he saw and understood the similarities between himself and the man he had just entombed. There but for the grace of God… Raoul stood and moved to the back of the room towards the shelf with the gleaming masks atop it, drawn to them with the desire to understand more. To see through Erik's eyes.

He picked one up, the shaped black silk cold to his touch. He raised it slowly to his face. _What must it have been like…_ He brought the ties around to the back of his head, knotting them just below the broad brim of the hat. He let go and lowered his hands, and with his eyes closed, felt the strange sensation of the pressure against his face and the cool silk brushing against his lips.

For a moment, he thought he heard the creak of a floorboard behind him, but the whole house was full of little creaks and groans, structurally unlikely as it was. When the sound was followed by a sharp little gasp, he spun around to look for the source of the noise, the cloak unfurling out behind him with the sharp movement.

He nearly let out a gasp himself.

His wife stood before him, her hands clasped to her mouth, and tears of joy coursing down her cheeks.


	4. Needful Lies

_A/N: Another thanks to everyone reading this, so far, and an extra thank you to those who have reviewed! Your words are greatly appreciated, and have helped to inspire me along the way._

_This chapter surprised me with how dark it turned out to be, but then, so has much of this story. I've come to accept that it's destined to vacillate wildly between dry humour and rather morbid seriousness... but I did say it was a SOMBRE comedy, after all! Things will get lighter again - and quite a bit sillier - before you know it.  
_

_Also, my apologies for the slow update. It's been a heck of a month, boy, but it's starting to get better..._

* * *

**Chapter Four**

To say that he was stunned by this vision, and by the realization of the compromising position in which he now found himself, would be sufficiently insufficient as to seem almost wholly inaccurate. For at the sight of his wife in the doorway, two things happened almost instantaneously to Raoul. First, all of the air expelled slowly from his lungs in a painful wheeze. Second, his body became completely frozen - still half-twisted, palms down and fingers splayed in a gesture of paralytic bafflement.

In that first, precarious, fragile moment - poised like a delicate porcelain egg about to tip over the edge of a jostled shelf - he wanted to speak. He truly did.

He wanted to even manage so much as a stammered attempt to begin to explain, but his lungs refused to draw air again, and he could only stand helplessly as the tearful woman launched herself from her place in the doorway - the metaphorical egg now tumbling toward a marble floor, and Raoul unable to catch it - and prostrate herself at his feet. She began to fervently kiss the edge of his cloak with incoherent murmurs, then grasped him about the knees and wept into the soft black cloth.

"Oh thank God, thank God!" she exclaimed between sobs. "Erik! Oh! I thought I might never see you again, but the good Lord has answered my nightly prayer, and here you are. Alive, alive! I am not too late. Thank the heavens." She clung to Raoul even more tightly then, which he would not have believed possible, and her voice was momentarily silenced by a fresh flood of tears and racking sobs.

Raoul once again attempted an explanation. He managed a wheeze. Christine looked up at him, rapt.

He swallowed, hard, to force the muscles of his throat to cease their silent protest. "Christine," he finally rasped. "You must know... I am not the man you think I am. I-"

A wail erupted from his wife's throat then, easily drowning out his feeble stammering with the volume of its grief.

"It's true! It's the horrible truth. And oh, how I was horrid! I was! I treated you with the terror and loathing with which one cringes from a creeping spider." She grasped handfuls of his cloak as she spoke, pulling herself up higher. Her face was flushed; eyes wide, glossy, and feverish. She stared up into his eyes, grasping at him as though she were hanging from the edge of a precipice.

Raoul could only stare back, silent in his masked horror, as the poisonous words spilled from her lips. "You must hear this now, Erik. _You must know this_. I love you. _I love you_, and now it is I who am but a poor dog, ready to die at your feet."

She continued to stare up at him, red lips parted as she drew shaking breaths, her wide blue eyes reflecting yellow in the candlelight. Tear streaks shimmered on her cheeks, and Raoul became aware of the wetness of his own face, tears spilling over and seeping into the black silk of the mask. One escaped to fall and silently splash against Christine's cheek. Raising a hand, now violently trembling, he brushed the tear from her skin. She grasped the hand, cupped it to her cheek, and leaned into it. Her flushed skin felt hot enough to scorch Raoul's fingers, which had been numbed by the coldness of the cellar. Christine closed her eyes, and released a soft sigh. Behind the mask, Raoul smiled sadly as he remembered when such sighs had been for him.

"Christine," he breathed. "Oh Christine, you must listen to me. In your absence... I'm so sorry. Erik died. He _died_, Christine."

Raoul pulled his hand up, to raise it and untie the mask. This cruel misunderstanding had to end before their suffering was prolonged any further.

But sensing him pull away, she seized his hands with both of hers, and held them so fiercely he thought she might crush the bones.

She placed desperate kisses on the knuckles of each captured hand. "I died without you too. Every day apart from you, I died a little more. Oh God, Erik," she said, her voice dropping to an awed whisper, "You said you would die, but you waited for me. You waited, and now we can both live."

Raoul's voice had left him once more. He could only stare down at her in misery, each word she spoke plucking out another piece of his heart.

"If you had been dead, Erik, how could I be your living bride? I had promised you that much, hadn't I? I came back to stay with you, you see! To stay, forever.

"For I have learned that there is no life for me without you. I have tried, every day, to live the life you freed me to pursue. But don't you see?" She bit her lip, shook her head. "But how could you? The life I am meant to have is the one here, with you. You thought a life away from the light and the world would surely kill me. But I tell you, Erik, it is the other way. The life without you is the one that is surely killing me!"

Raoul would have staggered back at her words if her grip had not prevented him. He stared down at her, his eyes wide, feeling a sting as though he had been struck across the face. Confusion and anger fought within his breast. Without thinking, he found the words leaving his mouth.

"If Erik had been dead, Christine." His voice came out in a low growl, his tone teetering on the edge of barely contained hysteria. "If you had found Erik dead, _what then_?"

Christine's lips spread into a slow, quivering smile that sent a shudder through Raoul.

"A dead husband cannot have a living bride, Erik. Did Aida leave her Radames alone in his tomb? No! She stayed, wed to her true love in death.

"Death no longer frightens me as it once did. Still your hands are so cold..." She held one to her burning cheek. "And still they smell of death..." Oh God, she had just been _kissing_ them! "...but I do not recoil. I cannot bear to let them go. If I could not be your living bride, Erik, I would have made do. It's you I want to be with, you whom I belong with, and I no longer fear the consequences, now. Don't you see? _I would have stayed_."

"You..."

She cradled her face against the folds of his cloak, whispering, "Safe in your arms, until the flame went out."

Then softly, in a light whisper like a distant echo in the underground chamber, she began to sing, Verdi's notes blossoming into colour as the lines progressed and her voice gained strength.

"_Vedi?... Di morte l'angelo radiante a noi s'appressa, Ne adduce eterni gaudii sovra i suoi vanni d'or..._"

Raoul could do nothing but stroke her hair with his trembling fingertips as the notes flowed out from her. Never had her voice sounded so hauntingly beautiful. Never before had he so wanted it to stop.

Eventually, it did. The words, summoning the embrace of the angel of death, faded out into a distant, haunted siren's song, the way they had begun.

In the silence that followed the last faint and hovering notes, Raoul stood dizzily looking down at his wife, and heard now only the ragged sound of his own laboured breathing. His body was in a panic that his mind was too fogged to keep up with. He freed one of his hands from where it was twined in the curls of her hair, and held her chin, turning her face directly to his as he continued to pant for breath; gathering his next words took a focused exertion.

"You would be fool enough to die with Erik."

"Yes."

"That is _not_ what you promised Erik."

"It is what I have promised myself," she answered, her gaze and voice unwavering.

Raoul's fingertips tightened, and he had to consciously hold back from hurting her with his grip. "And your husband? What of the man who loves you with his whole heart and being?"

"It is you, Erik, whom I promised first to marry, and in the eyes of God, and in my heart - I know now - it is to you that I am truly wed. And if you still care for me as you once swore that you did, then it is of yourself that you speak."

She then held up her left hand. A gold ring glinted in the faint light. "There is no other."

Earlier that night in their sitting room, Raoul had felt the ring on her finger. His ring? Was it _his_ ring that he assumed she still wore then, or had he felt... this ring, instead? The ring flashing before him now, this thin gold band...

_I asked you, dear girl, to place our ring on my poor dead hands... but I asked too much of you..._

An anguished growl escaped from Raoul. He pushed Christine away, who fell back from him with a cry, and he turned from her, his shoulders hunching over as he buried his head into his arms. His body was racked with silent sobs which turned into dry heaving as the weight of her heartless words for him fell upon him like heavy blows.

"Erik..." he heard her cry from behind him.

Still turned away from her, he lowered his arms and clenched his fists. He managed to choke out, still shuddering, "You foolish, heartless, ungrateful woman! What of your _lawful_ husband? Have you no care for him? You underestimate the man you married. Do you really think him so careless, so _foolish_, that he would let you stay down here with a ghost?" His voice rose steadily in volume, and he turned back to see the woman cowering on the ground as he shouted his admonishments. "Your _husband_ loves you enough to die for you. He would come to rescue you. He would take you away by force if he had to. He would never let you throw your life away for a _dead man_!"

Raoul stopped his shouting and stood, twisted over her, glaring at her in a mixture of horror, despair, and pity.

Christine wiped her tearful, reddened eyes on the sleeve of her dress, and said quietly, "My life without you would be forfeit. And I would only be a burden to Raoul. To love a good man with only part of my heart, while I know he loves me with all of his... The pity is, I love him too much for that. Such a good heart deserves better." Her voice broke as she spoke, and she paused to let a sob escape. She wiped her eyes again, swallowed once, twice, and continued. "I would find a way... If I could not return to you in body, I would in spirit. I would go away from here with him, yes, but later... I would leave him again when his fears were allayed, and find my way to death and back to you."

She buried her face in her palms and whispered, "I know it's not what you wished for me. Please don't be angry with me for telling you the truth in my heart."

She lowered her hands from her eyes and looked at Raoul with such honest resolve that he could not doubt a word she had said. This was not more melodrama-inspired hyperbole. This was... real. He felt his knees give out along with the last vestiges of hope.

He slumped into a black-cloaked heap on the floor before her, and brought to his hands and knees, he could only stare silently into her clear bright eyes - looking to him now with so much hope and love - and know that there was nothing left for him to do.

Raoul de Chagny had been defeated in his quest to save his wife.

He closed his eyes, taking a long moment to offer up a silent prayer, begging the Lord's forgiveness. For all that he had done. For all that he must do.

Opening his eyes, he looked to Christine, and felt some strength return along with this resolve. He crawled to where she waited, tearfully, for her love to forgive her.

Raoul took one of her hands in both of his, squeezing it gently. He smiled shakily behind the mask, and spoke with quiet eagerness. "Let's not talk of these darkest... what-ifs. No one needs to die, Christine. No one has died. Erik is here for you. I'm here, Christine." He slipped his arms around her shaking form, warm against him after so long in the chill of this tomb. "I waited, and I'm here, and I love you."


	5. A Clock Stopped

_A/N: My sincere apologies for the extremely late update. It's been a very busy busy and eventful time, lately, and I haven't been able to sit down to write very often at all. I'll do better now, I promise! Thanks for sticking with me.  
_

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Where he found the strength, he did not know. The two figures had sat huddled on the floor of Erik's room, for minutes or hours, with only their combined weights leaned together keeping them from total collapse.

Somehow Raoul extricated himself and, ensuring that the hat and mask were still well in place (knowing now the price if they were not), he took Christine's exhausted form in his arms and carried her from the room.

She cradled her head into the crook of his arm, sighing sweetly. (A very different type of sigh from the ones that had grated on him for months.) After the malodour which had permeated the house when he had entered, and the general dankness of it now, there was no ignoring it. Christine smelled amazing. Lavender and rosewater that perfumed her hair, and the scent that was just _her_, wafted up to overwhelm Raoul's senses.

As he carried her out of Erik's room, and towards the Louis Philippe bedroom, he recalled another occasion when he, _Raoul_, had carried her through a different doorway and into a different bedchamber (as the climax to an event she now bafflingly viewed as some kind of bigamy). As the current scent and past pleasures mingled in his mind, he wanted nothing more than to toss her down on the bed and cover her with fervent kisses, to bury his nose in those stubborn blonde curls - now coming fetchingly unpinned - and have his fill of her.

Well, there was _one_ problem - just the first of many, he was only just beginning to realize. He wasn't supposed to _have_ a nose now...

_Oh God, stop!_ It was all too much. Far more than he could hope to think through after his mind and heart had been, all evening, cut out of him, bludgeoned, stomped upon, chopped, and put thrice through a meat grinder... metaphorically (though if someone had told him at that moment that such things had literally occurred, he would not have contested the statement). _Breathe, man!_ He could only manage this by putting one foot in front of the other.

Which, he realized, he had better start doing again instead of what he was actually doing at that moment, which was standing in the hallway, outside his wife's new bedroom, trying to smell her hair through the false nose that covered his real nose. She looked up at him with exhausted, endeared bemusement, and he was certain he must have turned a shocking shade of red beneath the mask.

He walked on.

The room was dark, save for a single candle he had lit there during his earlier rounds. It cast a faint, warm flicker over the papered walls and patterned bedding. The candle did nothing to cut the chill, however, and as he gently deposited Christine on the mattress - where she gave a sleepy little coo of contentment - he knew he would have to light the fires in the rooms` hearths if they were not to catch a chill in their sleep. The last thing he needed was to add illness to this abominable conundrum.

He pulled the bedding and a heavy quilt up over Christine, who sleepily mumbled some non-words at him as she nuzzled her face down into the pillow. _Good_. The efforts of the evening had spent the poor, silly, mad, lovely girl. Perhaps there would be no awkward questions, no sidestepping, this night. One last night of peace... if this could ever be called peace... before Raoul would have to _face_ the consequences of his actions of the evening.

He walked past the foot of the bed to the hearth, looking over instinctively, on his way, to ensure that the panel to the torture chamber remained locked, though knew that he had locked and sealed it himself. Closed, it blended so perfectly that he could not, at least by candlelight, detect even a seam in the damask wallpaper.

He turned back to the hearth, a broad, stately thing in dark wood, matching the sharply angled silhouette and plain, bold moulding of the Louis Philippe set. On the mantel, pale with dust, sat the two locked boxes, with their spring-loaded contents: one once ready to jump, and the other to sting.

He knelt down before the fireplace (It felt a strangely reverent act, head bowed and his cloak pooling around him, a candle in hand) and gazed into the bared teeth of the brazier, and realized he had no idea what he was doing.

He brought the candle closer and squinted at the fixture.

An unfortunate side effect of a fortune, Raoul was only just beginning to realize, was the expectation, both familial and social, that accompanied it. Despite the upheaval and grief which had marked his family life from its very beginning - his own mother having died in his birth, the later loss of his father, the still raw wound of Philippe's death - Raoul had been groomed for great things from the time of the joy and tragedy of his birth. A distinguished career in law, perhaps, or in politics or, as it had nearly gone, distinction in a military career. Men of great means had potential to do Great Things. And even moreso because they had a serving staff to keep them free from menial distractions.

Menial distractions such as lighting the hearth.

Raoul sighed, the air blowing a lock of his blond hair that had come loose over his forehead, and which he quickly tucked back out of sight, and prepared to get down to this business.

He held the candle closer and squinted into the woefully insufficient light it cast. He was struck immediately by the cleanliness of the fireplace, free of accumulated ash and soot, and saw brass tubing winding inside, pierced with fan-shaped spouts to vent... gas. Good. Yes. Gas. This would be easy if he could find the... valve?

He heard rustling behind him. Christine was stirring in her bedsheets. Was she watching him? Of course she was. She hadn't paid him a moment's inattention since arriving. He was surprised the girl risked blinking, for fear he might leave her sight for so long.

_Hurry, you fool!_ Staring gape-mouthed at his own fireplace like someone who had never looked into it before (which he hadn't) would do nothing to further this charade. If he did not play this part to perfection... Maybe she was only stirring in her sleep.

He touched a few of the fixtures with the tips of his fingers, then snatched them back as quickly as one attempting to pet a vicious dog. For all he knew, whatever wasn't the valve might be the spring trigger for some particularly vicious... maiming trap. Or some such monstrosity.

He sighed again, and odd mixture of panic and annoyance.

"Just above, Erik dear, on your left," came a languid voice from behind him, muffled and slurred from exhaustion.

He froze, paled, then turned the valve and lit the fire.

When he rose, shakily, and turned to her, wide-eyed and bereft of excuses, Christine had fallen dead asleep.

He snuffed the candle and stepped slowly to the bedside. With a soft, nearly silent sigh (he really had lost track of their number this night of nights), he leaned down over her sleeping form, so close that her breaths ruffled the silk over his lips. With a touch as light as that silk that concealed them, he brushed his lips to her forehead.

"Good night, Christine."

He walked from the room and closed the door behind him.

.

Back in Erik's room, Raoul's pretense at calm abandoned him.

Having closed the door firmly, he had been relieved to find upon it, among other mystifying fastenings he dared not so much as breathe upon, a simple deadbolt to lock it against any night time beseechings of his wife. He leaned back against it, and held the door-frame for support.

Safely concealed, he tore the hat and mask from himself and threw them as hard and far as he could across the room. As they were made of cloth, this was not particularly far at all. He jammed his besuited and becloaked forearm into his mouth and let loose a long, well-muffled scream into the fabric. Every curse word he had ever heard - and having gone around the world as one of many sailors, he had heard a variety - roared through his tempestuous brain, like the shouts of a crowd all vying for attention.

And yet once more, that unending night, he sank to his knees in misery.

This time he did not weep, but merely stared at the floor a small distance away from him (about as far as his unsuccessful throw). Pale, barely blinking and barely breathing, he suddenly... disappeared from himself. Like a broken clock, the gears stopped turning, the hands stopped ticking their way around. Relentlessly overwound, as by a child or an enthusiastic pet monkey, Raoul had... jammed.


End file.
